The new face of Euroskeptics and Europhobia
The new face of Euroskeptics and Europhobia: American conservatives in Europe.
The Irish “no” vote and the involvement of what some believe is the American defense industry and American conservatives might have been partially of their doing.
The Brussels Journal is a manifestation of this some-times crackpot American conservative ilk slamming on to European shores. The result of 25-plus years of this destructive and dehumanizing ideology ruined America, dismantled social safety nets, demonized the poor, destroyed jobs and education funding – and turned American society to one that is unbearable for all except the rich and the well off. This ilk has had its sight on Europe and its “socialism,” especially after most European nations rejected the Iraq War.
This mean and socially destructive philosophy is metastizing to Europe. American conservatives appear to have been active in subverting the Christian Democratic ideology of Christian Democrats, especially in Germany, for sometime now. The International Democrats (Christian Democrats) have e-mailed offers to its members to attend the Republican national convention in Minnesota. Now – they appear to be stirring up all kinds of trouble with regard to the European Union and the Lisbon Treaty.
The threat against Europe is quite real and it is easily challenged. First of all, they are very much into inventing and cultivating demonizing and stigmatizing labels about their “Others.” The tactics of this ilk are to reinvent Cold War stereotypes and labels, including the attempt to liken the European Union to the “new Soviet Union” and Europeanists as “communists.” With regard to this ilk, they are strong into nationalism and patriotism – and have stirred up British nationalists and euroskeptics, and we can both hear this on American talk radio and read it from Sally McNamara’s Europhobic-alarmist reaction to the Lisbon Treaty.
This ilk has been discredited and rejected by Americans, and is one of the reasons why Barack Obama is so wildly popular. However, the residual effects of 25-plus years of Reaganism and brutal conservativism remain in American society. American still is the most criminalized society on Earth and more Americans are behind bars than in any other nation on Earth. There are people sleeping on the streets, including war veterans, in the richest nation on Earth. Children go to school hungry and often cannot afford school supplies. What was largely with brutal craft of Ronald Reagan may take Americans 25-plus years to repair and undo. What is most alarming is that this brutal and dehumanizing social economic system now seeking to infect European society and give it these same illnesses that have left America a human wasteland.
Europeans must identify this strain of virus called American conservativism – and inoculate itself against it…
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3 comments:
First of all, the social market economy is not "socialist," as it appears to be claimed here. While not perfect, at least this form of capitalism (yes-its a form of capitalism) seeks to be inclusive and not exclusive. Europe should stand up for social justice, human rights -- and promote these abroad. Christian Democrats are largely responsible for the social market economy and social justice is from Catholic social teaching. It is the most Christian thing to subscribe to in terms of economics.
Unlike America, Europe learns from the past. That is what the European project is about - and its is highly successful. Yes - we know about Europe's shortcomings with regard to the Balkans, but it is learning and has learned. Europe has developed its own defense industry and its own security paradigm, and, hopefully it will have its own separate-from-NATO security organization.
One of the other realist rationales and American "interests" in Europe is the notion that if America was evicted from Europe, Europe would go back to the same ol' power politics of the past. Nonsense! This explanation ignores the role of the European Union as a security community.
What is immoral is cramming NATO down the throats of Europeans and attempting to tie European military endeavors to NATO. There simply is NO reason for NATO and America to dominate Europe anymore other than the notion to keep Europe chained to NATO, keep American primacy over Europe (and the rest of the world) and prolong the "unipolar moment."
"Democracy" is not just about referendums. Referendums are good for local issues. In the United States, Americans do not hold referendums on the ratification of international treaties. Those nations that ratified the Lisbon Treaty through their parliaments did so by a process that is acceptable in Western democratic practice. This includes passage by the parliament and then the signature by the head of state, such as the Queen in Britain. This procedure is not much different from the US, where the treaty id ratified in the Senate and then signed by the President.
The Lisbon Treaty, which many the voted "no" did not understand, respects national governance, national identities and respects the principle of subsidiarity, which can be likened to some aspects of American federalism, such as Article Ten of the Bill of Rights.
From the Lisbon Treaty:
Article 4(2):
The Union shall respect the equality of Member States before the Treaties as well as their national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, inclusive of regional and local self-government. It shall respect their essential State functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security. In particular, national security remains the sole responsibility of each Member State.
Article 5(2):
Under the principle of conferral, the Union shall act only within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the Member States in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein. Competences not conferred upon the Union in the Treaties remain with the Member States.
Subsection 3:
Under the principle of subsidiarity, in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.
Also, using US federalism as a shining example for Europe to emulate is not terribly convincing.
In reality, through creative legal and budgetary maneuvers, the Federal government has steadily taken over more and more state competencies.
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